A Heiton of Darnick fell at Flodden. His successor played no inconspicuous part in the bitter fight by his own tower side, on Skirmish Field, scene of that memorable encounter in 1526 between Angus and Huccleuch, when the stake was the person of the young king, James V. Turn-Again, too, is in the immediate neighbourhood, on the lands of Abbotsford, where the Scotts turned fiercely on their pursuers, and Ker of Cessford was slain. It is curious to note that beneath what is now a lawn at Darnick Tower many skeletons were dug up some years ago, and beside them were swords. Doubtless the skeletons were those of men slain in this fight; but why were their swords buried with them? Over the hill, at Holydene, an ancient seat of the Kers of Cessford, there was also unearthed years ago within the walls of the old castle, a gigantic skeleton, by its side a very handsome sword. Were their weapons, in the sixteenth century, laid convenient to the grasp of the dead warriors, as in Pagan times they were wont to be? Bowden Moor and Halidon are but over the hill from Darnick. It was from this direction, by the descent from Halidon (or Halyden, modern Holydene), that Buccleueh came down on Angus, after Cessford and Fernihirst and Home had ridden off. But the Homes and the Kers returned, and spoiled the play for the outnumbered Scotts. "Now Bowden Moor the march-man won, And sternly shook his plumed head, As glanced his eye o'er Halidon; For on his soul the slaughter red Of that unhallowed morn arose, When first the Scott and Carr were foes; When royal James beheld the fray, Prize to the victor of the day; {230} When Home and Douglas, in the van, Bore down Buccleuch's retiring clan, Till gallant Cessford's heart-blood dear Reek'd on dark Elliot's border spear." [0250] Less than a couple of miles to the west from Darnick, we come to that which Ruskin pronounced to be "perhaps the most incongruous pile that gentlemanly modernism ever designed." I fear that even the most devoted Borderer must admit that Abbotsford _is_ an incongruous pile. Nevertheless it is hallowed ground, and one may not judge it by common standards. It reminds only of the gallantest struggle against hopeless odds that ever was made by mortal man; it speaks only of him whom everyone loved, and loves. "The glory-dies not, and the grief is past."